Russia Teams Up With Iran to Continue to Bomb Syria

Ho, ho, ho, here’s a scenario no one could have possibly anticipated: some complex thing in the Middle East as a temporary patch to some previous complicated thing in the Middle East turned out to backfire for the U.S. because of a lack of any semblance of an actual policy as opposed to a series of random actions linked only in temporal order. Soon a new thing will be needed to counteract the lastest old thing, but that’s for next week.

The most current thing is that Russia deployed bomber and fighter aircraft to Iran for air strikes on rebels in Syria, the first time in 37 years that Iran allowed foreign forces to base and deploy from its territory. The new basing dramatically cuts into the number of frequent flyer miles the Russian air forces needs to bomb Syria. Flying out of Iran instead of from inside Russia means more sorties a day, maybe lower maintenance burdens, maybe heavier payloads.

Iran has, for now, walked back the arrangement, apparently embarrassed at the publicity. The larger issues still remain.

So a review, to put things in context. We’ll go quick here, kind of like the opening song of the Big Bang Theory, where they cover the history of the whole universe in 30 seconds of jaunty song:

— About 13 years ago Iraq was a stable place, just another crappy Mideast stinkhole run by the same dictator it had been for decades. U.S. invades to “free Iraq,” chaos ensues through two presidencies with a third teed up. The more or less stable Iraqi-Syrian border became a porous sore for Sunni baddies to enter and leave the fight, precursor foot soldiers to ISIS. The Sunni collaboration with (then) al Qaeda to protect themselves from Shiite militias spread into Syria.

— Five years ago Syria was a stable place, just another crappy Mideast stinkhole run by the same family of dictators it has been since the 1960s. The U.S. had tolerated, dealt with and cooperated with the Assad family during much of that time. Why, post-9/11, the U.S. even outsourced some torture to them. There were no Syrian aid agencies, no orphaned kids of Aleppo, no global refugee crisis.

— The Arab Spring starts in 2011, U.S. sees an opening, fans the flames in what started as a legitimate people’s revolt in Syria. Assad fights back, U.S. keeps intervening just enough to keep the fires burning but not much else, chaos ensues. Hillary and David Petraeus demand more U.S. war in Syria, end up instead getting a new U.S. invasion of Libya as a consolation prize from Obama and another failed state is created in another crappy Mideast stinkhole that had been run stably by the same dictator for decades. But we digress.

— Blah blah, time passes, people die, U.S. declares Assad an evil dictator who “must go,” thinks it negotiates the Russians into the new war to help “free Syria.” Russians grin wildly as they establish new full-force, on-the-ground military footprint inside Syria without a shot fired. They’re back into the game in the Middle East, half-invited by the U.S.!

— The oops! It turns out the sneaky Russians support Assad (who knew???), as America used to, and aren’t fighting him, like America wants them to. Bad, bad. John Kerry flies around Europe ignored by the White House (“sure, John, off you go, don’t forget to write and let us know how it’s going”) with his trademark Muppety “cautious but optimistic” face.

— But oops! Things change; the U.S. doesn’t like Assad, no sir, evil dictator kills his own people genocide barrel bombs poison gas save children, but isn’t going to attack him either like the Russians won’t attack him, because the war isn’t about “taking him out” per se except when asked to say that on TV news in America, it is about defeating destroying ISIS. So, the U.S., Russia and hey, sure, why not, Iran, are all on the same side, fighting ISIS.

— BONUS: The U.S. and Iran are also “fighting ISIS” in Iraq. Iran, the big winner of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, is grinning wildly as it establishes a new full-force, on-the-ground military footprint inside Iraq without a shot fired. They’re back in the game, half-invited by the U.S. Iran had been training and equipping the people who had been fighting the U.S. in Iraq 2003-2011. Now they are helping U.S.-supported Iraqi Shiite militias who had been fighting the U.S. in Iraq 2003-2011 retake the same cities U.S. soldiers died taking 2003-2011.

And that brings us to this week, where Assad is still around, ISIS is still around, Iraq is still a sectarian mess, Iran more or less controls the Iraqi government and the powerful Shiite militias except for the ones who might just rebel and/or slaughter Sunnis to complete a slow-burn civil war, Turkey a newly-collapsing crappy Mideast-ish stinkhole run by a new dictator and Russia and Iran, always a bit wary of one another, are cooperating militarily to attack ISIS (U.S. thumbs up!) in support of Assad (U.S. thumbs down!)

And that’s all before we get to the Kurds, who are well on their way to creating a confederacy of Kurdistan carved out of parts of Iraq, Syria and Turkey. That will be the impetus behind the next war inside the Middle East, with most of the same players now in Syria joining in. Figure maybe a year from now or so.

Recent Comments

teri said...

1

At least Russia was invited and is there legally.

Back in the seventies, my baby brother, God rest his soul, had a t-shirt that read, “Join the Army; travel to exotic, distant lands, meet exciting, unusual people and kill them.” He wore that thing until it fell apart. We had a bumper sticker on the car that read, “What if they gave a war and nobody came?” We did more than slogans, of course, but I won’t get into that on the internet.

I came out of the grocery store one day a few years ago to see a huge young fellow wearing a Special Forces t-shirt scowling at my current bumper sticker. (It reads, “War is not the answer.”) I’m not sure what saved me from a certain thrashing: my gray hair, my pronounced limp, or my gender. In any case, he satisfied himself with a muttered, “Fuck you, lady,” and stalked off.

Times, they are a-changing. Getting rid of the draft was a brilliant move on the part of the PTB. Sure got rid of the protesters at the same time.

The only positive from this Middle Eastern chaos is that Kerry gets to serve penance by wandering the desert in vain with its myriad mirages for perhaps twenty more years (he might be kept on!). He was origianlly scheduled for just 15 years of Beduoin wanderings for his Vietnam War flip flop sins but another five was added for his , “If Assad gets rid of his chemical weapons….” blunder. Poor clueless bastard.

Mean while.. Clintongate continues to prove her loyal scumbags at State..notwithstanding her attorneys, like herself… are lying sacks of shit..

quote”The FBI’s year-long investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server uncovered 14,900 emails and documents from her time as secretary of state that had not been disclosed by her attorneys, ….”unquote

Pitych. let’s hope Russia’s release of Hillary’s damning scrubbed emails will be a factor inthe POTUS race. But! The debates-which I sense could be “postponed” will show Hillary to be mentally impaired.

Hahaha! This election will prove.. beyond a shadow of doubt, that not only are those who aspire to power in Murika so fucking bizarre as to make Ringling Brothers Circus look like a children’s birthday party, it will finally, once and for all, prove this country IS.. , the posterchild for the DUMBEST FUCKING COUNTRY ON THE PLANET.

Ho, ho, ho, here’s a scenario everyone could have possibly anticipated: We have met the enemy and it is US (NSA).

James Bamford: But we now have entered a period many have warned about, when NSA’s cyber weapons could be stolen like loose nukes and used against us. It opens the door to criminal hackers, cyber anarchists and hostile foreign governments that can use the tools to gain access to thousands of computers in order to steal data, plant malware and cause chaos.

It’s one more reason why NSA may prove to be one of Washington’s greatest liabilities rather than assets.

al Assad is a member of the Ba’ath party, which is secular. Syria is the most secular (non-religious) country in the Middle East, with the majority of its citizens wanting to keep it that way. Most Syrians are opposed to sharia law and sharia government. al Assad won the last election handily. We can try to make up reasons for that (he cheated, a hell of a lot of Syrians had to vote from outside the country, he was just the lesser evil, etc.), but there is actually no proof that the Syrians back anyone more strongly than they back Assad. They don’t want the shitty sharia ISIS people, or the shitty sharia Sauds or the shitty sharia Qataris running their country. They don’t want al Nusra Front or al Qaeda in their country.

The US now not only has its proxy groups running around with US-supplied weapons tearing the place up, but also some boots on the ground; “advisors” to the terrorist proxy forces we unleashed. All of this illegal of course, and a clear invasion of a non-aggressive (against the US) country. To top it off, despite the fact that our invading forces/military/(“advisors” ) are an open invasion of a foreign country, the US has just informed the legitimate government of Syria that if they try to expel the troops or in any way threaten them, the US will shoot down Syrian or Russian planes “as necessary” to protect these illegal boots on the ground. Likewise, the US claims the right to protect the US-installed terrorist groups or Kurds trying to break apart a section of Syria for themselves by shooting down any Syrian or Russian planes and attack Syrian or Russian forces “as needed”. Russia is there legally, remember, having been invited by the Syrians to help get rid of ISIS and its affiliates.

To put it plainly, we have invaded Syria and are telling the Syrian government they cannot defend themselves against this invasion or against the proxy terrorists groups we support. And if they do try to expel our illegal troops, we will blame THEM for starting WW3. It is unlikely that if we shoot down some Russian planes it will go unremarked and it is equally unlikely that Russia wouldn’t retaliate.

Putin, by the way, enjoys an approval rating of over 80% in his own country; I guess they didn’t get Hillary’s memo that he is the “new Hitler”. (As opposed to Trump, who is perhaps the Lesser Hitler or the neoHitler, according to that same memo. Poor Hillary – so many Hitlers, and only one lifetime to vanquish them all.)